Judge Birss - What a dude!

[tek-monkey]

You may remember him from such court cases as ACS:Law versus everyone, where he effectively stopped all speculative invoicing scams and bankrupted the lawyer involved to boot. Now he has sat on the apple vs samsung case, and his judgement rocks!

For those that don't know, apple is in the habit of suing anyone that makes aphone that looks like theirs. You know, if it has a button, or a screen, then its an apple design. Anyway, in the latest round in the UK courts (other courts may be available), he has decided that apple don't have a leg to stand on. Why? Because apple is too cool, and nobody would mistake a samsung for an apple, therefore there can be no design patent infringement. Apple can appeal, but that would be to admit they are not cool. Gotta love this guy

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/samsung-wins-court-case-against-apple-because-not-142349772--finance.html

On a more serious note, the whole patents argument sucks big fat donkey balls. A guy in the US actually has a patent for using gestures on a touch screen, that means every phone company that uses touchscreens owe him big cash monies. Odd that he is only going after apple though, he'll probably go after the rest later.

http://9to5mac.com/2012/04/20/museum-display-company-sues-apple-over-touchscreen-patent/

 

[Jonah]

The judge is a complete fool.
Whatever you prefer, be it iPhone/iPad/iOS or Android/Samsung/whateverstupidnametheiroperatingsystemisthisweek practically all current smartphones are copies of the original iPhone.
Multi-touch, pinch to zoom, icon based user interface. iPhone had them first and everyone copied. No judge will make me think otherwise.
Samsung's tablet may not be as "cool" as an iPad but it's still a copy.

 

[tek-monkey]

Touchscreens existed before the iphone, as did icon based operating systems. Gestures were patented well before apple used them, and I'm still not convinced they were the first real world use. Multi-touch may be an apple thing, don't know for sure. Tablets have existed since the 90s, we used some at work. Just because they were crap doesn't mean they weren't there.

So, what did Samsung copy that apple didn't?

I think this judge is great, he doesn't seem to award monetary compensation but instead makes the companies involved look silly. The latest is to make apple run an article admitting Samsung didn't copy them. The whole litigation on dubious patents needs stopping, he seems to be taking steps to ensure it happens. This case wasn't even about technical things, it was more a 'looks like a golf' kind of thing. The fact is you can trace all the crap from any of these companies back to another. They are all as bad as each other for stealing each others ideas, the sooner they stop trying to sue each other over it the better.

 

[tek-monkey]

Seems multi-touch has been around almost as long as I have, but apple were the first to use it on a mobile phone. I have no idea if pinch to zoom was a standard gesture on these devices or an apple creation, but if Apple had indeed invented it I'd assume they'd sue people for using it? If they sue people for looking vaguely like their product then you'd expect them to have run out of decent reasons. And in what way looks like theirs? They weren't the first tablet, so surely someone else owns the 'flat shaped object with a touchscreen' patent?

Like I said, all these companies take tech from others. Apple may have been the first to make something popular, it doesn't mean they invented it. They'll be telling you FaceTime is a new invention next, yet I was making video calls in 2004. I'm not sure anyone has had an original idea for phones in years, they just take existing technologies and try to make them fit. This isn't a bad thing, but you shouldn't be allowed to take people to court because they copied the same thing you did.

 

[Jonah]

Apparently Apple have been granted patents for a lot of the multi-touch technologies. The litigation wars will continue for a while yet.

 

[tek-monkey]

How can they patent something invented by a Canadian university? The world is mad.

 

[My Name is URL]

The judge is a complete fool.
Whatever you prefer, be it iPhone/iPad/iOS or Android/Samsung/whateverstupidnametheiroperatingsystemisthisweek practically all current smartphones are copies of the original iPhone.
Multi-touch, pinch to zoom, icon based user interface. iPhone had them first and everyone copied. No judge will make me think otherwise.
Samsung's tablet may not be as "cool" as an iPad but it's still a copy.

I think this post makes itself look silly enough without my need to dispute it....

Nice to see the Apple brainwashing still works on some people though.

 

[tek-monkey]

I can't think of a single technology invented by apple, although they have made the first mainstream products to use a technology on a few occasions. Very few successful companies really invent anything, they just find better ways to use other people's creations.